Two weeks into the NBA season, the leaderboards are full of shooting percentages that will not survive until Thanksgiving. Seven or eight games is enough to trust minutes and role. It is nowhere near enough to trust a three-point percentage. This report compares every notable early line against the player’s career baseline and sorts them into three groups: cold shooters to buy, hot shooters to sell, and profiles that look strange but are exactly who the player is.
All numbers are regular-season per-game figures through Tuesday, November 3, cross-checked between Basketball Reference and either ESPN or RotoWire.
Buy Low: The Shooting Will Come Back
Victor Wembanyama, Spurs
Wembanyama is averaging 25.7 points, 10.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 4.0 blocks in 31.3 minutes, and he is doing it while shooting 26.2 percent from three on 6.0 attempts a game. His career mark is 33.9 percent, and he hit 34.9 percent last season.
Nobody is trading Wembanyama at a discount, so this is less a buy-low than a reminder: his current per-game line is the floor, not the ceiling. If he drifts back to even 33 percent on the same volume, that is roughly another half a three per game on top of a line that already includes 4.0 blocks. If you roster him, ignore any early panic in your league chat. If you are trying to acquire him, this is as quiet as his surface numbers will get.
Jalen Johnson, Hawks
This is the genuine buy-low of the early season. Johnson finished last year at 22.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 1.2 steals over 72 games. Through seven games this season he is at 18.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and roughly eight assists, which still plays, but his efficiency has collapsed: 42.1 percent from the field and 25.8 percent from three, against career marks of 49.5 and 33.3.
The important part is that the role has not changed. He is playing 32.6 minutes, his rebound and assist volume is intact, and he is still taking 4.4 threes a game. A player with a near-50 percent career field-goal mark does not suddenly become a 42 percent shooter at 24. His manager is looking at a points total down four from last season and wondering what went wrong. Nothing structural did. Make the offer now, before two good shooting nights reset his price.
Trae Young, Wizards
Young’s line in Washington is 19.9 points and 10.0 assists in 36.0 minutes, on 39.4 percent shooting and 27.1 percent from three. His career marks are 43.3 and 35.1. The assists are right on his career average of 9.8, so the playmaking engine is fine; the scoring dip is almost entirely jump-shot variance.
The quietly encouraging number is turnovers. Young is at 2.9 per game this season against a career average of 4.2. In nine-category leagues, that has been the biggest drag on his value for years. If his shooting normalizes while the turnovers stay even close to this level, he returns top-40 value in a category format where he has rarely been better than a fringe option. Treat him as a buy in nine-cat, a hold in points leagues.
Sell High: Enjoy It, Then Move It
Jabari Smith Jr., Rockets
Smith is averaging a career-high 18.4 points in 34.5 minutes, driven by 48.1 percent shooting from three on 6.5 attempts. His career mark is 35.1 percent, and his best full season is 36.3. He is also at 88.0 percent from the line against a career 79.9.
The volume is real and worth noting: 6.5 threes a game is in line with the 6.3 he took last season, so this is not a role expansion. It is the same shot profile going in at a historically unsustainable rate for him. When the three-point percentage comes back toward 37 or 38 percent, his scoring falls back toward the 15.8 he averaged last year, and his thin assist and block numbers leave him without a category floor. If a manager in your league views him as a breakout, sell him as one. You do not need to dump him, but you should be listening to offers.
Domantas Sabonis, Kings
Sabonis is pulling down 14.6 rebounds and 6.9 assists in 36.1 minutes, and he is shooting north of 71 percent from the field. His career field-goal mark is 56.1 percent, and his best season was 61.5. That field-goal number will fall, full stop.
The nuance is that the rebounds and assists are entirely sustainable; he has averaged 10.7 boards and 4.9 assists across 672 career games, and the Kings are running their offense through him. His scoring sits at just 15.0 points, below his recent norm, so his overall value is not inflated as much as the percentage suggests. Hold him if you need boards and dimes; sell only if someone pays you as if the field-goal percentage is permanent.
Stephen Curry, Warriors
Curry is averaging 30.0 points in only 28.8 minutes at 38 years old. Most of it is real. His 42.9 percent from three on 10.5 attempts is a touch above his career 42.2 percent, not a fluke. The one number that will move is the free-throw line: he is at 98.1 percent on 8.7 attempts, against a career mark of 91.3. Expect his scoring to settle a couple of points lower. That still makes him a first-round producer; it does not make him a sell unless someone offers you a younger top-15 player.
Looks Weird, Is Real
Walker Kessler, Lakers
Kessler’s first eight games in Los Angeles after the summer sign-and-trade: 14.4 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 1.1 steals in 30.8 minutes, on 71.4 percent from the field and 53.6 percent from the line. Both percentages look extreme. Both are exactly who he is. His career marks are 68.3 and 54.4.
That makes Kessler one of the most stable early profiles in the league. The minutes are the story, and after a 2025-26 season that lasted five games before shoulder surgery, 30.8 a night is the workload fantasy managers were hoping for. In category leagues, build around the field-goal boost and punt free throws. In points leagues, he is a locked-in starter as long as the minutes hold.
Yaxel Lendeborg, Warriors
The No. 11 pick out of Michigan is averaging 21.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists in 31.9 minutes. He is shooting 50.0 percent from the field and 40.0 percent from three on 6.3 attempts, with 6.5 free-throw attempts a game.
The 40 percent from three is the number most likely to slide; that is an elite mark for any rookie on that volume. But the case for holding is that the production is built on volume, not just efficiency. He takes enough shots to score 20 a night, he gets to the line, and he rebounds like a frontcourt player. Even if the three-point mark settles in the mid-30s, the minutes and shot share keep him a top-100 option. He is a hold, not a sell-high, unless your league is willing to pay for a 20-point scorer.
Early Regression Rankings
Ranked by how much value the regression should add or remove over the next month:
- 1. Jalen Johnson — biggest buy-low; role intact, efficiency far below career norms.
- 2. Victor Wembanyama — three-point mark eight points below his career rate on unchanged volume.
- 3. Jabari Smith Jr. — biggest sell-high; 48.1 percent from three against a 35.1 career mark.
- 4. Trae Young — nine-cat buy; shooting should rebound, the turnover drop is the upside.
- 5. Domantas Sabonis — field-goal percentage will fall, but the rebounds and assists are safe.
- 6. Yaxel Lendeborg — volume-based production; expect some three-point slide.
- 7. Stephen Curry — free throws come down, everything else holds.
- 8. Walker Kessler — the most stable profile here; draft-day percentages, bigger minutes.
The rule for the next two weeks is simple: trade for role and volume, trade away percentages. The players above who kept their minutes and shot attempts while missing jumpers are the ones whose value climbs from here.